Vyapam scam: SC to hear Digvijaya Singh’s plea

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will hear on Thursday a plea by Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and three whistle-blowers seeking an apex court monitored CBI probe into Vyapam scam and the spate of deaths of the people related to it.

An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice H.L. Dattu on Tuesday said these petitions would be taken up on July 9 along with two others seeking removal of Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav so that he could be prosecuted for his alleged involvement in the scam.

Digvijaya Singh and the three whistle-blowers – Ashish Chaturvedi, Anand Rai and Prashant Pandey – while demanding for Supreme Court-monitored CBI probe said they have no faith in the Special Task Force that is monitoring the SIT probe into the scam.

The petition of the Congress leader and the three whistle-blowers were mentioned by senior counsel Vivek Tankha and Indira Jaising.

U.S. President Donald Trump is seen through his transparent teleprompter as he speaks during the Missile Defense Review announcement at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., January 17, 2019. VOA

A global anti-corruption watchdog says the United States has dropped four spots in its list of nations’ anti-corruption efforts and is now no longer listed in the top 20 for the first time.

Acting U.S. Representative at Transparency International, Zoe Reiter, calls a four point drop in the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) a “red flag.”

She says it comes at a time when the U.S. is experiencing “threats to its system of checks and balances” and an “erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power.”

Caravans from Central America have inflamed the debate over U.S. immigration policy, with U.S. President Donald Trump using the migrants to try to secure backing for his plan to build a border wall on the frontier with Mexico., VOA

“If this trend continues, it would indicate a serious corruption problem in a country that has taken a lead on the issue globally,” Reiter says.

The United States scored a 71 in the perceptions index after scoring 75 the previous year.

“The expert opinion captured by the CPI supports the deep concern over corruption in government reported by America in our 2017 survey. Both experts and the public believe the situation is getting worse,” Reiter said.

Bulgarian anti-corruption protesters march during a demonstration in downtown Sofia, VOA

Transparency International uses several criteria for measuring how well a country is fighting corruption, including checks and balances on political power, controls on conflicts of interest and private influence on government, and voter suppression.